Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  “The hell it was.”

  She shrugged, cropped violet jacket glittering. “Figured I should check on you.”

  “Yeah, fuck y–” I froze. Way too late. “Muerte,” I said dumbly. “How are you here?” Not even Hope knew where I’d shacked up; I’d ignored all her offers and demanded cred in hand to pay for it. Boarding was part of the deal, but that didn’t mean it had to be Reed’s business.

  Off the grid meant off the grid.

  Half the booze haze vanished in a wash of adrenaline so vicious, I flinched. Fear spiked a second behind. “Shit,” I hissed. Then, at her, “I’m blown, aren’t I?”

  Her gaze trailed leisurely down my naked body, newly shorn hair to muscle to the dragon curving at my side, hip and along my right thigh. “Play your cards right?”

  I took one step forward, right fist clenched.

  She raised both hands, warding off my venom. And another punch that wouldn’t get us anywhere. “Not yet, Riqa. But it’s going to be real close.”

  I sank to the floor. My spine rattled against the counter edge. My head rebounded off the same lip when I landed. Didn’t even feel it. Ass cold on the floor, feet planted, I rested my forearms on my knees, hands limp, senses dragging.

  Closing my eyes, my head fell back. Thump. “How bad?” I asked wearily.

  “Just bad enough that I figured out how to find you from the network,” she replied. Her voice came from a lower position; she’d crouched. “But then, I’ve learned to recognize the pendejo’s patterns. I doubt anybody else is savvy to it yet.”

  I cracked open an eye. Yup, she’d crouched, weight balanced easily. Her hands clasped loosely, gloveless. D-E-T-H in brilliant red highlighted her left hand, each finger lettered above the knuckle.

  She’d had that forever. Punched me when I pointed out she should have gotten a sixth finger for the A, just to be a dick. Our first fight. Hardly our last, but every time I saw those letters, I fought the urge to comment again.

  “Here.” She pulled a recharge from her belt, handed it to me. “You look like shit streaked on shit street.”

  “I know,” I muttered. But I took the squeezable plastic, surprised at her thoughtful gesture. Smart runners carry recharges often, and there was usually a slot in our custom harnesses, belts, and bags for them to hook in. The muted green sludge – sometimes blackish purple, depending on the origin – had enough kick to keep our nanos from overcompensating when pushed; a kind of technological energy drink. Only less like piss and more like the bathroom at the tequila bar.

  I hadn’t intended to go so long without. Then again, I wasn’t always as smart as I should be.

  Downing this meant I wouldn’t have to worry about the stress I’d put my body through already. A kindness, sure, but also practical as hell. I cracked the seal and tucked the capped straw between my teeth. “Gracias,” I said around it.

  No acknowledgment. Queen of goddamn avoidance. “You need a plan,” she said instead.

  “Yeah, no kidding.” I dug thumb and forefinger into my eye sockets as I sucked up the sludge, trying to push the fear away. I didn’t like fear. Fear meant I was unprepared, and that only made me angry.

  Lucky’s rule number one was getting put to the test here. Survive no matter what? It’d be touch and go for a while if the syphilitic diarrhea hit the fan. Up and comers I could handle.

  Someone with enough juice on the line to locate my place?

  That pissed me off even more.

  I sucked hard at the recharge, swallowed a mouthful of it and clambered to my bare feet. I passed Muerte as she rose.

  She followed me out. “And that plan is…?”

  “Kill everyone.”

  Her chuckle snorted through her nose. “Plan for that plan?”

  This time, I pulled the plastic away from my mouth and smirked over my shoulder. Caught her staring at my back. “Take a picture and I murder you.”

  She laughed, grating and loud. As ever. “No need, nena, I’ve got you locked in my memory banks forever.”

  “Flirt.”

  “Whore.”

  “I’m not your girlfriend.”

  “Your loss.”

  My smirk widened before fading out entirely. “Plan for the plan,” I mused out loud. I booted up the printer, propped a naked hip on the counter it occupied. Drank some more. I could practically feel the little fuckers’ feeding frenzy. I’d pushed it today. Again. Always.

  I only had a few items in the printer’s database, but I didn’t need much more. Printing them up wouldn’t take long. “I need to find Indigo.”

  “Yeah?” Muerte tucked her hands behind her, leaning next to the door frame. One boot braced against the wall. “I probably know more than he does.”

  I shook my head. The printer beeped loudly, and I turned my attention briefly to the screen. Black cargoes, a lot of pockets for a lot of toys. Gray tank, loose enough to compensate for the breeze without getting in my way – I dialed up a skull print on the material for fun. Purple underneath, shitkicker boots I’d managed not to completely trash today, and a replacement for the harness I’d left behind at Mantis. Nice and casual.

  As the device kicked in, I gave my attention back to my unwelcome guest. “I’d wondered if Indigo had leaked that vid,” I said, “but even he doesn’t know where my shack is. Whoever found me, he didn’t do it through any sources he’d have access to.”

  “Koupra couldn’t have followed you?”

  I shook my head, grimly amused. “I haven’t been back here in weeks.” I didn’t come here enough to have risked that much.

  She let out a relieved breath that puzzled me. I tilted my head, eyebrows raised. “I’m glad to hear that,” she admitted. “I was hoping I’d be able to lean on you.”

  Ah ha. The favor. I closed my teeth around the straw. “Uh huh.”

  “Favor for a favor.”

  “I get that.”

  Muerte nodded. “You know what’s going down. You’re prepped.” I nodded. “So now I want an introduction to Indigo Koupra.”

  That stunned me into wordless silence. Then, eyebrows wrinkling, I asked, “Why don’t you already know him?”

  “He’s got standards.”

  “You don’t meet them?”

  “Let’s just say he’s got a grudge.”

  “For the Squad?”

  She shrugged. Guilty as charged. I hadn’t known that.

  “I want a run with him,” she added.

  “That…” My face screwed up in dismay. “That’s not as easy. Why do you want it?”

  “Because his cred is muy bueno and I want his business. Like Citywide Bank of Koupra,” she replied seriously. “He’s remarkably good at what he does, or so word says.”

  “I’ll see what I can do once we find him. But, Muerte, I’m not exactly on his good side right now.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded back. “I know. I’m also prepped for the letdown if he won’t meet with you.”

  “Ouch,” I muttered. “Don’t jinx me. I can use all the help I can get right now.”

  “You’re right.” She made a symbol with both hands I didn’t understand. “You are unjinxed.”

  I eyed her, took the last, long pull from the recharge pack. It crumpled. Then, swallowing, I threw it over my shoulder and asked blandly, “Have I told you to fuck yourself yet?”

  “You have something in your teeth.”

  I gave her the same two-fingered insult the little shortmunch enforcer had given me. She smirked.

  I got dressed fast, pulling the boots on last and kicking them into place on my feet.

  Once in place, I stomped all the way to the tiny bedroom; she kept on my heels. Easing my arm through the harness didn’t hurt as much as I’d expected. Tequila. Miracle drug of choice.

  “First thing,” I said, crouching in front of my dresser. “We need to find him.”

  “Call him?”

  “Can’t. Haven’t gotten my protocols fixed yet.”

  “Ai.” Muerte leaned aga
inst the dresser, looking down at me with a hand on her hip. “What about the Mecca?”

  “Too early.”

  “Koupra’s place?”

  I shot her a grim little smile as the drawer I yanked out rattled. Loudly. “You think he’s stupid enough to let anyone know where that is?”

  “Not like you did on purpose.”

  “Not like he’s stupid enough to let it out by accident, either.”

  “You said it,” she chuckled, “not me.” She rose on tiptoe, peering over my shoulder. Whistled at my stash. “You don’t play around.”

  “Sure I do.” I grunted as I lifted the trophy in my collection. The Valiant 14, my pride and joy. I didn’t take it out as much anymore, not since I’d lost my first one, but I’d fondle it anyway. Maybe let Jad fondle it one day.

  I tossed it on the bed, added extra clips beside it. Three interceptors, a smaller butterfly, two medium pistols – both Phelps & Somers 4884 Cougars. Clean firearm, easy to holster, with 11mm caseless rounds and a shocking rate of fire for its size. I generally didn’t like them as much as my skull-splitting ammo, but didn’t have much choice.

  The Adjudicator had been taken by Reed’s people. I’d fix that later.

  “Not to make a bad day worse,” Muerte said as I strapped my gear on, “but where will you go to get fixed?”

  A good question. Rolling back in to Mantis and the lab there wasn’t an option.

  I didn’t have to trawl around to know that any reputable chopshop wouldn’t touch me. Especially now that everybody else knew Lucky had tossed me.

  That left any number of lowcred chopshops, butchers with less talent than raw luck. I’d never had to go there, never had to risk it.

  Because I’d had Lucky.

  It always came back to Lucky.

  I rubbed at my scalp, newly buzzed hair spiky against my clean palm. “I’ve got one option,” I said slowly. I slipped one of the interceptors into the base of my harness, one in a sheath tucked into my boot.

  The third clipped into a pocket, all but invisible in my baggy black fatigues.

  “And that is?”

  I slotted the butterfly into my arm, thumbing open the space I’d had built in to the diamond steel and releasing its mechanical catch. The clips for my Valiant wouldn’t fit, but extra ammo for the smaller weaponry would.

  Muerte watched all this with bemused amusement. We were no stranger to street warfare. “Avanza, already. What’s the fix?”

  “Lucky.”

  Muerte grabbed hold of my shoulder, spinning me around with serious concern harshing her smile. “Riko, that’s not how it works.”

  I disengaged, but without heat. “I know,” I said. I gestured with my free hand, a flail at nothing. “I know! But I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Muerte muttered something I didn’t catch, then added, “I want to reassure you, bebe, but I can’t.”

  “I know,” I repeated. I bent to collect the Valiant, pulled the strap crosswise over my shoulder. “Don’t think I’m not aware. But as hard as Lucky is, as shitkicking stubborn, I’m counting on years of investment to keep my skin where it is.”

  “It’s a fucking big risk.”

  “It’s a fucking big problem.” I waved her back into the hall. “We’re going to Kongtown.”

  22

  Muerte waited as I set my security in place. The doors locked automatically behind me. Which meant she’d jimmied them.

  Which then meant I glared at her hard enough to make my eye sockets burn.

  She shrugged, her version of innocence. Swiping her bangs out of her eyes, she pointed at her ride – a three-wheeled Hiki Cobalt with, I’d bet, bullet and shatterproof glass and no shortage of reinforcing. It’d seat two. Lucky me, I got to ride in back.

  I mulled the plan as we crossed the cement to the trike. I didn’t know if Lucky would actually shoot me. He might. Whatever I told Muerte, he’d never bent on his views. He’d told me to come back when I pulled my cred out of the shitter.

  Instead, I was going back with my cred gone worse and a favor to ask.

  By the time I climbed inside the Cobalt, I couldn’t decide if I was going to shit my pants or pray. I needed Lucky. I needed him to come through. And if he zenned it long enough, he’d see my problem as something other than my own.

  Besides, he owed me. I hadn’t figured out just how yet, but it was long past time for a heart to heart. Or a growl to growl. Or something.

  I fastened the seatbelt as Muerte adjusted the seat. Wasn’t going to risk that, either. Intelligent saints buckle up. The estimated amount of brains that get splatted on the interior of closed vehicles is legendary – especially among saints. You just never know when somebody’s going to try to kill you, vehicle to vehicle.

  Or rocket launcher to vehicle.

  Bomb to vehicle.

  Heavy to vehicle.

  Like I said, legendary.

  “You like?” Muerte asked as she threw a leg over the front seat. It sat like a motorcycle, but tilted forward, giving her full frontal view and side systems to gauge the rest. Three-sixty coverage and, let’s face it, an incredible view of her lush ass as she locked her feet into place.

  The engine purred like a goddamn lover. Muerte babied this thing, and she’d spent a literal fortune on it. I didn’t have to ask to know it.

  My turn to whistle. “Somebody’s rolling in it.”

  “Was,” she replied wryly, and patted the dash. “But she’s fast and she won’t spin out.”

  “Then,” I replied, tucking one foot up on the back ledge of her perch, “let her go.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Like you needed me to,” I scoffed.

  She laughed. The trike did the rest.

  Now I had to hope, pray, wish and whatever else desperate fuckers do that Lucky would give me a chance.

  Best case, he’d help me out. Minimal fix, for old time’s sake.

  Worst case, the only saint I’d have taken a bullet for would put that bullet in me himself.

  Lucky roulette. Time to put all my chips in.

  The zones are huge. Too big to navigate without speed on your side, and Kongtown is no exception. I like the place. It’s a teeming city crisscrossed with streets large enough for traffic and alleyways barely large enough for brats to squeeze through – running errands for the older folk, the pushers, the cutters, the bosses. Delivery is popular, food places dot every street and some of those back alleys. Ratruns intersect everywhere, as they do in every zone, and buildings tower so high they lean against each other in the older parts.

  Every possible Eastern Asian character for every possible Eastern style of long since fusioned food flashed, popped, sizzled, flickered, faded in and out. Between them, fuckingly bright advertisements for flesh on display and for rent – girls, boys, ladyboys, boyladies, and everything in between. Need a vag but none of the conversation? A wet little pucker for your fantasies? There’s tech for that, instead. Rent by the hour.

  Visitors unfamiliar with the zone thought the whole district was one giant mishmash. Either they never learned just how turfed out it was, or they died for fucking with it.

  Fortunately for us, riding through wasn’t that much of a danger. Tourists come and go, people looking for food, sake, a fight, a bet, whatever. Kongtown is alive in ways so many other districts aren’t – save maybe Deli and the rack. And possibly the FriqaChiquita’s run, where a lot of the mexi folk carved out turf ages ago and refused to move. Not even the Kill Squad wandered up that way without a full group and an assload of munitions.

  They’d win, if the Squad was anything like it used to be, but it’d cost.

  Once we detoured away from the populated blocks, bypassing some of the more aggressive borders, the streets narrowed. Signs lessened, never fully vanished. Made everything look shadowy as night crept in. Streetlights ran sporadically; most people this far on the outskirts string up their own generated lights.

  Muerte pulled up to the c
rumbled curb. “You want me to stay?”

  My chuckle lacked all humor as I unfolded from the back of her trike. The heatwave rolling through the shields this side of Fourteenth Divide had only gotten worse over the past few weeks, and night just traded shine for swelter. I squinted at her. “You want your cred to take a hit that bad?”

  She didn’t smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  I hesitated. For the first time, I paused to look at her. Really look at her, and not just at her gorgeous legs and round ass in those temptingly short shorts. Under that boxy fringe of her red-tipped hair, her brown eyes met mine with an intensity I hadn’t expected. Sincerity, I think. Or something determined like that.

  She was here.

  I frowned. “Why?”

  Her crack of laughter sounded like surprise. “You’re late to ask.”

  “Fuck you,” I said, turning as she locked her beast. She tucked her palm against a side plate indistinguishable from the rest; a blue sheen rippled over it. Saint vehicle sec. Nothing else like it. “Why are you here? Do you need Digo’s cred that bad?”

  “Bad? No.” She fell into step with me, surveying the somewhat emptier streets as the shadows began to stretch marginally cooler fingers across the area.

  Dinnertime in Kongtown, central to far edges, was serious business. Even the ethnic tourists took part – paid to take part, that is. Part of the experience, they said, and the residents were all too happy to charge up the vag for it.

  “My cred’s fine,” she continued, shrugging. “The Squad’s got good reach. But I need access to people that trust him, and unless he trusts me, I’d have to start at the bottom of the barrel.”

  “Leapfrog, huh?”

  She snorted. “Wow, haven’t played that since I was a kid.”

  I never had. I shot her a sideways glance and caught her gaze on me, shrugged at her and murmured, “Your funeral, chica.”

  “Don’t take my lines.”

  The finger I gave her gleamed in the sun, freshly cleaned and irradiated.

  Muerte laughed too much. Too loud. Too long.

  Not loud enough to cover the sound of approaching engines. Several of them. Grating. Powerful. We stopped mid-step, halfway between her ride and Lucky’s shop, and looked at each other. She tilted her head. I frowned.